Summerland rules. It absolutely, completely sings. I could sling around quotes all day, but suffice it to say that Chabon’s prose is elegantly clear, without unnecessary flourish or artifice. He’s got the knack of writing about the mythic without seeming pretentious or overwrought. People sound like people, even when they’re saying important things. “A baseball game is nothing but a great contraption to get you to pay attention to the cadence of a summer afternoon.” Yeah. I love the way he takes the sting out of the eloquence by deliberately dropping back into the vernacular with “get you to pay attention.” A lesser writer would have said “to force you to pay attention,” or used some other more grammatical construction. ...

Politicans can be so gutless. “If we try to make defense, foreign policy the overriding issue we will lose, because the country is with the president on this issue,” [Representative Martin] Frost said. I’m gonna go out on a limb here: perhaps you should not be making policy decisions based on what will win elections, but rather on what you believe? Or what you said when you ran for office?

While it is probably true that France opposes war with Iraq due to oil, it is also true that the US has a financial motivation for invading Iraq. If the fact that France profits from the current situation leads us to speculate that such profit is their primary motivation, we ought to take equal note of the equivalent situation over on the US side. ...

ESPN reports that the Red Sox are about to hire Bill James as an advisor. This is not exactly a first, but it’s certainly significant that the most famous sabermetrician has signed on with a major league club. I’d say that Billy Beane’s success with the As opened the door for this — but if James succeeds, that’ll mean the position of sabermetrician will become standard for MLB teams.

I’m going to miss Dick Armey (original). Best voice for privacy in Congress this year.

This is deeply irrelevant, but I woke up at 4 AM to do server maintenance this morning and posting on irrelevant matters beats a sleep deprived anarchist rant any day. This is sort of where I used to live; you can make out the Food Town where I used to shop at the top of the picture. Lousy supermarket but excellent roast beef. There’s a hill right behind it, which you can see at the left of the Food Town. I lived up there. ...

As an English major, I’ve heard the story about Alan Sokal, physics professor (original), who got a paper published in a postmodern literature journal. In fact, I’ve heard it one too many times. Consequently, this report fills me with utter glee. It might be worth rereading some of Mr. Sokal’s discussions about his hoax, by the by. He never meant it to demonstrate that the study of English literature is inherently flawed; rather, he was making some fairly interesting points as a leftist regarding the dangers of whole-scale adoption of structuralist dogma by the American radical left wing. This is a point too often missed when discussing his hoax. I hope he has something to say about this one — I think it’d be an interesting read.

Just a quick Turkish update — the leader of the Justice and Development Party, Recep Tyyip Erodgan, says he’s opposed to a US strike on Iraq unless approved by the UN (original). Thanks to Carneggy for the heads up.

The Justice and Development Party has won the Turkish elections, kicking out the ruling coalition in a landslide. This seems likely to be more a reflection of discontent with the Turkish economy and a corrupt government than it is a return to Islamic fundamentalism, although the Justice and Development Party was formed from the remains of an Islamic fundamentalist party. However, they ran on a pro-Western platform and have disavowed their Islamic roots. This isn’t the Taliban, and the victory does not represent a repudiation of Turkish assistance in the US war on Iraq. I expect some will claim it does, but this one isn’t Bush’s fault. It may not even be a crisis. ...

I spent much of the weekend on my quest for the perfect weekend breakfast. Much of the mornings, anyhow. I’m not quite mad enough to have breakfast at 8 and then follow up with a brunch excursion at noon, but I do take my morning breakfast pretty seriously. While I was unemployed, it was one of the only activities that got me reliably out of the house and in contact with people. ...